Survey Team P.E.R.N.
The Ancient's world had long since been stripped of minerals and miners had to travel across the galaxy to find possible sites to mine in.

Shaava Bint Faroud and her survey team found many possible mining sites during their first survey run of Pern. They pried many enormous gemstones or precious metals from the soils of Pern, including the Shaava Ruby (passed on to Avril Bitra) and the Liu nugget, an enormous nugget of gold pried from a river on the northern continent, probably near Lemos or Igen. These precious findings were not enough to interest a mining consortium but enough that they tempted Avril Bitra, Shaava's heiress, to treachery.

The survey team also discovered bones in tar pits in Igen, bones thought to be some kind of ruminant.

1st Pass and Early Days of Craft
Dragonsdawn Minecrafters include…
Sallah Telgar and Tarvi Andiyar (and family), Avril Bitra, Stev Kimmer, Nabhi Nabol, Bart Lemos, Ozzy Munson and Cobber Alinwah (worked together)
In addition Wind Blossom Ping created the whers, and it was later during the northern settlement that Ozzy and Cobber recruited the whers for working in the mines.

During the first pass, there was no centralized craft, "mining engineer" was the common title for a journeyman ranked miner. The stakeholds competed with each other to bring in more minecraft product. However, the two biggest mining areas for the early pernese were BitKim Island (Ista) and Karachi Camp, which was held by the Telgar Family.

The equipment called stonecutters was used in the building of Pernese holdings in the North as well as bringing out the ore, but later the stonecutters were used exclusively for tunnel cutting as finding replacement parts became more and more difficult. Later generations of smiths and miners tried to replace the cutting edge on the stone cutters, but were unable to find the right abrasive surface to fix them. When the cutting surfaces wore out, tunnel cutting was done by hand.

When the settlers crossed to the North, those at Karachi Camp moved to Telgar, along with the Telgar Family. Tarvi changed his name to Telgar. The minecraft was protected from thread underground and for a long time Telgar was the main source of firestone, coal, and iron ore for the North.

In addition, while this is not ICly known in Pernese society, Stev Kimmer moved to and took over Honshu Hold after Avril murdered the original stakeholder. In the Chronicles of Pern, first fall, a rescue team came to try and see what happened to Pern's survivors. Stev Kimmer and the other settlers stuck under his rule claimed that everyone else had been destroyed, Stev then hid gold and gemstones on the rescue shuttle, nearly resulting in it being too heavy to reach escape velocity. All the fruits of his and Avril's treachery were thrown from the shuttle's airlock. The only thing to come out of the whole affair was a package of numbweed seeds, which ensured the Pernese "survivors" would live comfortably on another colony planet.

Second Pass
Telgar's mines had begun to get dangerous, so a secondary mining site was becoming necessary. While Lord Chalkin of Bitra wanted the Steng Valley in Bitra Hold to be chosen. However there were serious safety concerns that Chalkin was not willing to address. Crom was founded to be this new center of mining. Crom stands for the names of its founders, Chester, Ricard, Otty and Minerva. Its assumed that areas like Igen, Ista and Nerat were named in a similar fashion, but the names of the founders are currently unknown.

The minecraft was founded in Crom. At the end of DragonsEye/Red Star Rising, K'vin visits Chalkin's successor Vergerin and found plans to address the safety concerns in the Steng Valley and restore it to viable mine condition. Its assumed that since Vergerin was more competent than Chalkin the plans were carried out and in later Passes the Steng Valley was a viable inhabited area.

In the Todd McCaffrey books, at the end of the second pass the laboratory at Benden Weyr was dug into the Weyr's passages, this secret passage was found during the Dragon Plague there and then abandoned at the dragon plague's end before it was found a second time in the 9th pass.

Third Pass
By the Third Pass the current system of crafthall rank and acceptance was more or less in place. In addition wher breeders hidden up in the mountains began to take over wher breeding.

The Mountains of Crom were being settled more in search of further deposits and a minecrafter had to 'Prove' the mine by running it productively for a certain amount of time and gathering a certain amount of inhabitants. Minor holds sprung up all over Crom. However, the only real mines the dragonriders cared about were the ones that produced firestone.

Sixth Pass Pern
Mine holdings in various back parts of Pern thrived until the plague in Moreta's ride. Some holds were lucky, some holds were not. While there wasn't particularly bad damage to Crom's mines, areas of Telgar, Benden, and the big population centers near Crom were depleted. There's the possibility of sixth pass mineholdings abandoned due to the Plague, either by miners who returned to fill the void in the depleted population centers staff, or by miners who caught the sickness at Ruatha and Ista and brought it back to their own holds.

Eighth Pass Pern
Not much is known about the minecraft in 8th Pass Pern, however, T'ron knew of a mine in Fort Hold's back mountains that had "Sapphires as big as a man's eye!"

MiscFacts
According to the DLG, Lord Nessel forced his holders to buy coal at inflated costs to maintain his economy, though his holders chafed at buying coal when wood was plentiful in his hold.
According to the DLG, there is a saying "hard wood and hard stone, a way by which Lemos is known" the hard stone in the saying refers to Lemos' jade mines. its the best place to learn how to work jade on Pern. Jade tools are used by the Bakercraft for making pastries and the healercraft for mixing medicines. Jade is even used in some places in place of metal, especially iron.
Master Miner Nicat never impressed a firelizard. Piemur felt that he was "a cold clod" for every firelizard egg he was given the lizard either disappeared between or went to another miner in the room.